Name: Where All Light Tends to Go
ISBN: 9780399172779

David Joy

Working against his will for his father's methodically organized meth ring, high-school dropout Jacob longs to pursue a better life with the girl he loves and faces a terrible choice in the aftermath of a dangerous mistake. A first novel by the author of Growing Gills.

Where All Light Tends to Go

Lara Engle

When I was about three-quarters of the way through this book, I thought, "Well, this is just depressing." And it is.But shortly after that, it managed to surprise me. A few surprises later, the book reached its poetic and strangely satisfying end. The flow of this book is odd and stuttering, but it managed to win me over.

A Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel “Remarkable . . . This isn’t your ordinary coming-of-age novel, but with his bone-cutting insights into these men and the region that bred them, Joy makes it an extraordinarily intimate experience.”—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review "Lyrical, propulsive, dark and compelling. Joy knows well the grit and gravel of his world, the soul and blemishes of the place."--Daniel Woodrell In the country-noir tradition of Winter's Bone meets 'Breaking Bad,' a savage and beautiful story of a young man seeking redemption. The area surrounding Cashiers, North Carolina, is home to people of all kinds, but the world that Jacob McNeely lives in is crueler than most. His father runs a methodically organized meth ring, with local authorities on the dime to turn a blind eye to his dealings. Having dropped out of high school and cut himself off from his peers, Jacob has been working for this father for years, all on the promise that his payday will come eventually. The only joy he finds comes from reuniting with Maggie, his first love, and a girl clearly bound for bigger and better things than their hardscrabble town. Jacob has always been resigned to play the cards that were dealt him, but when a fatal mistake changes everything, he’s faced with a choice: stay and appease his father, or leave the mountains with the girl he loves. In a place where blood is thicker than water and hope takes a back seat to fate, Jacob wonders if he can muster the strength to rise above the only life he’s ever known.

Fraser Simons

Gorgeous prose. Feels like Faulkner in its depiction of the south. There’s a lot of beauty and sad, sad horror. Eminently quotable. While the plot and structure is straight forward, it still managed to feel meaningful and vivid as anything I’ve read.

Melody Izard

One of my pet peeves while reading a book is hearing the author's voice in every single character. David Joy is definitely guilty of this. His quaint, somewhat Shakespearean style of writing shows up in all the people shuffling around in this story. But I could sort of shut my eyes and decide that Jacob McNeely is telling us this story and perhaps he would embellish the telling, which would include the character development and dialog with his own style, which might just match Mr. Joy's, and that seemed to take care of that.

There is a lot of despair, and lot of hopelessness, a lot of drugs, and a lot of bodies in the river. 

Jacob is our hope - but then he passes that light of hope on to Maggie who he thinks has a better chance of breaking free of the cycle.

There are some inconsistencies, yes. There is the aforementioned author/character bleed. But I see promise. I'll read more of this author.

Where All Light Tends to Go

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